Happy Place

We sometimes speak of a place that we go to in order to get away from our problems, or not so much to get away from them, but to put them in perspective. Going to this place really is an implicit admission that there is very little we can do in any immediate sense to conclusively solve our problems. We sometimes call this place a "retreat," I've also heard it termed a "good stop."

Lately I've been enamored of the phrase "happy place." That's the popular cultural phrase for it. And that's the phrase that came to my mind today.

Question for the readers: Have you ever had a person who was a happy place for you? I have. Quite recently actually. I will explain the concept of a person as a happy place now, although anyone who has ever had a person for a happy place will be able to just as easily tell me as vice versa.

Here's the scenario: your life sucks. You're not even really sure why it sucks. You're just in sort of a funk--you've become distinctly aware of the fact that you make mistakes and that you're not perfect and people, friends of yours, have called you on it. So you're sitting there and you have all these things on your mind: your imperfections, your mistakes, your problems, all the things about your life that you wish were different.

And then, your happy place person shows up. That's all they even have to do really is show up. And when they show up, your problems just sort of go away. Not that they completely disappear, but they're all placed into this beautiful perspective. They're insignificance becomes breathtakingly obvious. Problems? These are huge problems that you have? You have love in your life. Look at this person. You are loved by at least one person in the world, this person.

You realize this, and just knowing that is enough to make you feel better about everything. You're no longer on edge. You're no longer depressed about these problems or your imperfections. You know you're not perfect. It's okay. Because there's this person in your life who loves you anyway. And knowing that this person loves you even though you're not perfect, that fact makes you want to be a better person, for them. And it's not because this person expects you to be perfect, it's because you have no reason not to want to be better. You see how much this person loves you and you want to love people like that. Before we can ever take steps to be better we have to stop beating up on ourselves. When this person shows up in your life it calms you down, and you stop beating up on yourself. And the Lord sayd, "Good. Now we can get started."

What I'm describing really is just what it is like when someone in the world really images Christ to us. Because Christ really is the ultimate happy place. He is the one who loves us in spite of our imperfections, in spite of our mistakes and weaknesses. He is the one who shows up when we are in that funk, and puts all of our huge problems into beautiful perspective, and shows us how small and insignificant all of them really are.

And it is that great knowledge, the knowledge of Christ's unconditional love for us, that actually makes us want to be better. Not because he won't love us otherwise, but precisely because he does anyway. And we, wanting to be as close to him, as close to his love as possible, choose freely to let him into our hearts, and to try to live our lives as much with his heart as we can.